American kids are dumb

American kids are dumb. Look at any standard of intelligence measurement that compares the rest of the world with the United States, and you will find that the U.S. ranks somewhere between dead last and nowhere to be found among industrialized countries. The problem is that dumb kids grow into dumb adults (which can be seen on any Jon Stewart show where a Republican allows one of Stewart’s lackeys to do an interview). That means that you do not have to look any further than one dumb law in the United States that is meant to protect children but really makes us all look like bad parents who can’t protect their children from the most meager of threats. Chocolate eggs with toys inside are banned from the U.S., but not just banned in the way that Cuban cigars were banned. At least, with Cubans, you could bring some into the country as long as they were for personal use. These surprise eggs are banned with extreme prejudice – none are allowed into the U.S., and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, an organization that “is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.” The law is so entrenched that not even Disney, a company that has coerced the government into changing copyright laws to keep Mickey Mouse from going into the public domain, and Nestle could come together to modify it. In 1997, the companies partnered to bring America the Magic Ball, chocolate wrapped Disney toys. They stopped producing them that same year. Truthfully, children have died because they have choked on the toys inside the chocolate eggs. However, it isn’t as if they stuck the whole egg in their mouths and choked on the capsule. They choked on the parts of toy inside the capsule, after the capsule was opened. It would be the same thing as choking on a Lego or a marble or a coin. For people who do not have children, there is no getting around this law. It doesn’t matter if the person is going home to a house full of plants where no child will ever step foot. They simply cannot purchase, or bring in from another country, these chocolate eggs with the toy in the middle. That is a shame because these eggs and their toys are brilliant. Americans are missing out on one of the joys that every other industrialized nation gets to experience. The United States may be rightfully known as a country where Darwin is fine in our economics and our entertainment (America’s Funniest Home Videos, the Darwin Awards, and this), but we want him kept out of our schools, our science and out of the reach of children, at least as far as Chocolate Eggs are concerned. Guns, on the other hand, parents are responsible enough to handle the regulating of those in the household.